


I Don’t Need You to Love Me: A Steven Universe Review

by ArgentDandelion



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Meta, Nonfiction, Reviews, Series Review
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:02:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26385337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentDandelion/pseuds/ArgentDandelion
Summary: A review of the show Steven Universe (pre-Steven Universe Future).
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	I Don’t Need You to Love Me: A Steven Universe Review

_Note: the following review makes umbrella statements about target demographics. Readers should remember that a show can have aimed demographics and significant periphery demographics._

When Steven Universe (pre-movie) ended, I found myself disappointed. That was it? I thought. This was supposed to be ‘the good part’ I had been waiting to see. How could this happen? I felt more than just disappointment. At the end, watching this show had felt like a waste, and it seemed the show that ended wasn’t the same show I had chosen to watch back in Season 1. It was no longer the show of a boy creatively defeating a giant centipede monster, or the body horror, of turning into multiple cats, or of seeing one’s future selves dissolve into sand after a mystical artifact breaks, but a show where people cry and sing and resolve problems nonviolently.

But, looking back…it never wanted to be a show I would love.

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Kids’ programming networks appeal to different audiences by shows’ tones and themes. For example, Disney Channel is aimed more at girls, Disney XD is aimed more at boys. While Cartoon Network historically aimed at children in general, by the time of Steven Universe’s first episode, its primary audience was boys. Indeed, shows like Tower Prep, Young Justice, and Green Lantern: The Animated Series had been canceled before because they appealed too much to girls for the executive’s liking, regardless of their overall popularity.

Early on the run of Steven Universe, Cartoon Network tried to appeal to young boys through lighthearted (even goofy) action-adventure shows or outright comedy shows. And the advertisements for Steven Universe fit: it emphasized the crystal gems’ status as the super-cool, strong protectors of humanity, and the oddity of its wacky half-human member, Steven. It emphasized goofiness and absurdity, like Steven’s own pants walking around. It was certainly more like contemporary _Adventure Time_ than the more tough and “serious” _Young Justice_ or _Green Lantern: The Animated Series_.

Steven Universe played well to network executives’ intended demographic (more or less) for the first two seasons. It had plenty of action, adventure, and violence, and (though not strictly a “young boys demographic thing”) consistent smatterings of “lore” across episodes. However, it also flipped the typical, male-dominant boys’ show composition through three-fourths of its main characters being female. Furthermore, its one boy was a “tomgirl”: a sensitive, compassionate boy prone to crying, who wore pink and had healing/defensive powers, rather than offensive ones.

Apparently, Steven Universe was designed to appeal to both girls and boys. According to an article on LA Weekly, Rebbeca Sugar, the creator of Steven Universe, said: “I want to make a universal show and that, by default, makes it a more quote-unquote boys’ show because those are the more universal shows,[…]the boys’ show side is the side where I think the gap could be bridged.”

As Steven Universe became super-popular, though, it had more room to “stray” from its action-adventure-boys’-cartoon bounds. Though it was clearly never aimed exclusively at young boys, as time went on trends collided in such a way it would appeal even more to audiences outside young boys.

Given the show’s approach to conflict resolution, its songs, its abundant character interaction (and style—see all the crying), “straying” was likely what it intended to do all along.

Firstly, the goofiness of Season 1 subsided, or, at least, advertisements stopped emphasizing that. The types and frequencies of plots in Season 1 and Season 2, whether a monster-of-the-week episode with “Townie” (human residents of Beach City) and “Gem” subplots or a “track and catch Peridot/deal with the Cluster” plot, helped provide dependable action sequences, or even violence. Later episodes’ kinds and proportions of the plots made it focus more on townies, even for whole episodes. It got more episodes which had little if anything supernatural happening, and became more character-focused or relationship-focused than plot or action-focused (though it still had those).

In short, it got more mundane, or more like a slice-of-life/slice-of-life-comedy show. Interestingly, the factors which made it less of an action-adventure cartoon coincided with fans’ decisions on which episodes are “filler”: almost all the “townie” episodes are deemed “filler”.  
Even early in Season 1, there were mundane moments; half an episode could be pretty mundane. There was an emphasis on characters’ relationships with others, and complex emotions, and soft moments. While not an outright pacifist from the start (see: electrocuting Centipeetle in episode 1) he was always a compassionate peacemaker. And, even early on, there was crying and singing (see: “Let Me Drive My Van Into Your Heart”, second episode of season 1). Steven’s perspective is well-summarized with his claim “Giant robots shouldn’t fight” (Season 2, episode 23) which is hilariously ironic, given that’s the point of giant robot shows.

Later on, the ratio of mundane-to-magical moments got skewed towards the mundane, to the point whole episodes could be mundane. (e.g., Drop Beat Dad of Season 3, with no “Gem stuff” at all, without significant Gem involvement) Instead of character dynamics being a sub-plot or sub-theme of most episodes, it’s now a primary theme of many episodes. It’s hard to imagine almost an entire episode (episode 23 of a two-parter, Season 5) about Ruby and Sapphire getting married, with a long song about it, airing in Seasons 1-2.

Though I am female, I prefer plot-focused, violent, action-adventure cartoons—“boys’ cartoons”, generally. I thus ended up disappointed at Steven Universe’s different approach and likely shift in intended audience. Episode upon episode left me hoping for better ones next time.To be fair, this wasn’t entirely the fault of tonal or audience shifts, but also pacing issues (relative to my tastes, anyway) and all the hype of “Steven Bombs” (Steven Universe episode premieres, five nights in a row), broken up by long hiatuses.

Not everything will be to my taste, and variety is important in kids’ shows. The show’s approach to conflict resolution is both original and valuable in real life: after all, not everything can be solved by violence, dominance and punishment.

In the end of the series (before its epilogue miniseries), Steven sang:

> _I don’t need you to respect me, I respect me  
> _ _I don’t need you to love me, I love me_

And I can say….as disappointed as I was, this show doesn’t need me to love it.

**Author's Note:**

> The author enjoys comments. Feel free to comment, either here or on the author's [Tumblr](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/).


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